In a competitive e-commerce environment, customers are most likely to return to shop where they have had the best experience. Yet many retailers are falling short, explains Mareile Osthus, CEO and co-founder of Humii, a platform that essentially X-rays retailers’ online customer experience. 

“Experience should always be a focus point,” says Osthus. “Make sure you impress people with what you can deliver. That doesn’t mean you always have to be the best at everything. The minimum thing you can do is be honest and upfront in your communication.”

Speaking with Inside Retail’s Amie Larter in the latest edition of the Retail Untangled podcast series, Osthus says most Australian retailers optimise their websites for conversion rather than experience.

“If you only drive conversion but don’t make sure that the process after checkout is smooth and enjoyable for customers, it doesn’t help you. Forcing shoppers through the checkout at any cost won’t lead to anything if you can’t ensure that the journey after that is enjoyable.

All too often, she continues, retailers consider customer experience to be about how their website looks and how easy it is to find stuff and get to checkout. Many see their customer service team as providing a great customer experience. 

“However, in reality, customer experience is embedded in every single function throughout the whole company. It should be approached with the same intensity as any other aspect, from site design to the quality of the products sold on the site.

“To run a successful business, you need to have great products that fulfil a need for a certain target group and a great experience. If you sell great products with a shit experience, no one is coming back. If you sell shit products with a great experience, no one is coming back.”

One challenge is that retailers often lack information on the after-sale chapter of the customer journey to assess their end-to-end service standards accurately. 

“It is easier to look at website metrics, convergence, traffic, etc. When a customer checks out, they probably have metrics on how fast they ship, but … there are lots of issues shoppers encounter after checkout that the retailer is unaware of unless someone contacts customer service and says they have had these issues. Let’s be honest: how many people are doing that?”

Lessons from the Online CX Index

With that challenge in mind, Humii partnered with Inside Retail to launch Australia’s first Online CX Index powered by real data. About 1500 Humii mystery shoppers in Australia visit online stores for three months, creating a snapshot of retailers’ performance on a rolling 90-day average. Thanks to 200 touchpoints Humii monitors, the company has uncovered the customer experience from the beginning to the end, measuring on pre- and post-sale support, including FAQs, live chat interaction and email communication. 

“We want to drive awareness through the index of what great customer experience means. It’s a good reminder that you should not only look at your website. We dive into some metrics in the index, but also, we have the opportunity to celebrate retailers who do an outstanding job and nail every part of the journey,” she says.

The most common consumer pain points uncovered are where customers engage with the retailer to gather information. “It really starts with having FAQs, which explain half of customers’ questions. Naturally, they try to help themselves go through the FAQs, but if they can’t find the answer, then they go to customer service or live chat.”

Most commonly, retailers have FAQs where you have to scroll down without seeing all the topics at the top. Oz Hair & Beauty presents them from left to right, so in one view customers can see all the topics, making it easy to click on the topics.

With live chat, Osthus counsels being upfront about what times you are available to respond – another example of managing people’s expectations – and to be transparent about whether people are talking to a bot or a person. 

In Australia, the average post-purchase response time to an email enquiry is around 28 hours, but Oz Hair & Beauty does so in less than 20 minutes – the shortest response time Humii has ever measured for a retailer.

The standout returns experience

Osthus stresses the importance of having a smooth returns process, especially around prompt authorisation. “If people have to wait for returns authorisation, it’s unlikely they will shop with you again. It annoys them, and in many cases, they don’t know how long it takes. 

“We’ve measured that these confirmations can take up to six days. Imagine you want to return something, and then it takes six days for someone to confirm you’re good to go. Then they ask you to add some photos on top and stuff like that. That’s super complicated. 

“So have an easy-to-use returns portal that requires two things – your order number and your email address – that’s it. You get to your order, click that you want to return an item, and probably give a reason why you want to return it.”

She cites Bed Threads, a retailer currently ranking highly for returns satisfaction, as an example of best practice. The company refunds people once they trigger a return – before the parcel has even arrived at the warehouse, which shows it trusts its shoppers greatly.

“I don’t say this has to be the case, but it is a great experience, and the packaging is reusable. You don’t have to roll up your sticky tape; you can do it yourself.”

Preparing for the peak Christmas season

With the peak Christmas trading period looming, Osthus warns retailers not to let CX take a backseat to sales and conversions. 

“First and foremost, your CX should not fall behind. Imagine a restaurant is more busy on a Saturday night than on a Wednesday afternoon. It’s not like, okay, we are busy now, we just throw the food on your table, and you go and look after yourself.” Being busy is “not an excuse.”

“The most important thing retailers can do is if you know the traffic and the number of orders and so on will slow down your operations or customer service, be upfront and manage customers’ expectations. Usually, your website states that it takes two to three days to ship to you. Put up a banner, be honest, and say that due to peak trade, it might take longer. From our experience, people don’t take it badly if they’ve been given the opportunity to understand what is happening. It comes down to managing expectations. Don’t tell them something you can’t deliver.”

The roadblock here comes from retailers thinking they will be fine and just work through it; they can solve the problem once it happens. Or assuming that customers will accept that deliveries might take longer during peak season. 

“Not every shopper is aware of these things. They don’t understand the sequence of what it takes to place an order and ship it. Don’t assume they know everything.” Finally, she adds, retailers should not worry about losing conversions if they tell customers delivery might take a little longer.  

Osthus counsels that retail websites get new visitors every day, and every single person should leave with a good impression. 

“It is super easy to lose a customer if you mess up things. But if you manage expectations, people are fine.”

• Listen to the podcast to hear Osthus give examples of excellent online customer experience, including in returns and delivery communications, and how essential it is for retailers to put themselves in the customer’s shoes to learn and understand the customer’s pain points and processes.